compelled to embark in the movement which the majority of our citizens
still continue to regard as quixotic. I did not identify that force with
religion, then, and when I looked back on the first crazy campaign we
embarked upon, with the whole city laughing at me and at the obscure
and impractical personnel we had, there were moments when it seemed
incomprehensible folly. I had nothing to gain, and everything to lose by
such a venture. I was lazy and easy-going, as you know. I belonged to
the privileged class, I had sufficient money to live in comparative
luxury all my days, I had no grudge against these men whom I had known
all my life."

"But it must have had some beginning," said Alison.

"I was urged to run for the city council, by these very men." Bedloe
Hubbell smiled at the recollection. "They accuse me now of having
indulged once in the same practice, for which I am condemning them.
Our company did accept rebates, and we sought favours from the city
government. I have confessed it freely on the platform. Even during my
first few months in the council what may be called the old political
practices seemed natural to me. But gradually the iniquity of it all
began to dawn on me, and then I couldn't rest until I had done something
towards stopping it.

"At length I began to see," he continued, "that education of the masses
was to be our only preserver, that we should have to sink or swim by
that. I began to see, dimly, that this was true for other movements
going on to-day. Now comes Hodder with what I sincerely believe is the
key. He compels men like me to recognize that our movements are not
merely moral, but religious. Religion, as yet unidentified, is the force
behind these portentous stirrings of politics in our country, from sea to